How the Abercrombie Crochet Polo Shirt Became the Shirt of Summer

And the creator wasn't the only one who thought it would look pretty cool: This summer, TikTok and the streets of American cities are filled with men, millennial and younger, who have made the $100 crochet polo shirt the cornerstone of their warm-weather wardrobe.

Although they resemble models popular in the 1960s and 1970s that can still be found on sites such as Etsy And eBay All of the pieces are made from a combination of cotton and acrylic or viscose, a material typical of fast fashion pieces and, increasingly, designer goods. Abercrombie may not consider itself a fast fashion brand, and customers flock to the brand as an alternative, but there’s no suggestion that its materials and design practices differ from those of Shein or Zara, other than the sheer volume of products it makes.

On a recent visit to the Midtown flagship store, the oaky scent of the brand’s Fierce fragrance no longer hung in the air; there was no shirtless man with washboard abs at the door, beckoning and intimidating customers like a lacrosse captain’s siren. Those former staples of the Abercrombie shopping experience are now gone, amid a design and management upheaval that has resulted in what New York Magazine recently called the Abercrombie & Fitch markdownfocusing on generic styles in a wide range of sizes and affordable styles such as wedding guest dresses and clothes for the dreaded office workdays associated with hybrid work schedules.

The market seems to agree: the company's shares have jumped 245% over the past year, Fortune announced in January. Meanwhile, media outlets and savvy consumers, exhausted and skeptical of the constant rebranding of companies like Victoria’s Secret and J. Crew, are grappling with how to make sense of the transformation of a company better known for its outrageous designs and imagery and discriminatory hiring practices, detailed in the 2022 documentary White Hot, than for its successes. Two years ago, the writer Hanna Phifer wonderedSince when did Abercrombie become The Row for people on a budget?

It can be tough to get your hands on the shirt of the summer: two colorways were nearly sold out in stores, and online stock reflects a similar degree of popularity.

Elliot Duprey, a 23-year-old management consultant from Chicago who provides fashion and style advice to men on TikTok, described the shirt as easy to wear, especially for young men who are eager to push the boundaries of their personal style but are hampered by a slight insecurity. What’s acceptable for a straight man to wear? Duprey thought about how men think. Especially in Chicago. It’s like, what’s no one going to say? And like, at this point, [this style] It's been around long enough that it's become a safe and vulgar thing to wear.

The shirt is emblematic of two cultural shifts in fashion: first, Abercrombie's aforementioned rethinking from reviled retailer to baddest athlete in your high school to unexpected grassroots problem solver; and second, the rise of affordable, mass-market knockoffs of vintage or sustainable pieces that have become popular among those pushing back against the dominance of fast fashion.

Corey Robinson, Abercrombie & Fitch's chief product officer, wrote in an email that the brand first launched the style five years ago in three colorways, when classic 1950s menswear was starting to become trendy. But, Robinson wrote, “overall, trends today are less preppy, so we're seeing more success with our knit polos than with our traditional pique polo.”

The response from our customers has been incredible and we’ve expanded our selection considerably to become a key part of our menswear assortment today. Search for the Abercrombie crochet shirt on TikTok and you’ll find countless men trying it out. Most wear it layered over a plain cotton tee or tank top, though several also try it without the underlayer. A man tries it on over a black shirt, then, through the magic of TikTok's editing tools, appears to pull the shirt off and make it disappear, his bare chest peeking out from between the shirt's woven twists.. Spicy!

Duprey still associates Abercrombie with its mall heyday. In our video interview, he wore a shirt riddled with oddly shaped holes from John Waters' favorite Comme des Garons over a T-shirt, but he said he sees a number of shoppers looking for copies of clothing that looks sustainable or vintage. A brand like Todd Snyder, which I really like, also makes these crochet polo shirts, he said. [Abercrombie] is going after fast fashion, where it's a very safe zone. They tell you what to buy and what to wear it with on their website.

While generations of consumers have a distaste for counterfeits, whether because of the low monetary, social or intellectual cost of these pieces, Gen Z and millennials view them as dupes, presenting the copies as harmless, a hack or a bargain.

The polo’s launch date is also a testament to Abercrombies’ strategy. It was in 2019 that New York-based brand Bode began to take off, winning the Council of Fashion Designers of Americas’ Emerging Designer of the Year award. The crocheted polos, some made from repurposed textiles, others from new fabrics, are a staple of the brand, which designer Emily Adams Bode Aujla says was created to help men think of their clothes as family heirlooms, or pieces to be worn and repaired for decades. His shirts cost more than six times the price of Abercrombies. Many are out of stock.

The same year Bode began to make a splash in the men's market, Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time In Hollywood was released, sparking a wave of offbeat early 1960s style. This trend was further reinforced by a number of photoshoots of football player Christian McCaffrey and the actors Brad Pitt And Steven Yeun in GQ, styled by longtime menswear expert George Cortina, who emphasized sexy, shabby masculinity with a touch of contemporary sensibility.Last year, the magazine even published a shopping guide on how to wear a crochet polo shirt Vintage shirts have exploded in popularity as shoppers grow weary of low-quality styles and fast fashion, making the look of something old even more appealing. Over text, Cortina said he loves crochet and knit tops for their age and patina, adding that they’re also very photogenic.

As Robinson puts it, “Our designers find inspiration for our products by staying close to our customers and following their style needs and trends.” Most brands do this, of course: Many designers (including Bode) hire specialists to find vintage pieces for inspiration, and many vintage stores, especially those in New York and Los Angeles, generate additional revenue by renting their pieces to designers who use them as source material for future designs.

But the timing here, five years after the creation of independent designers, the creation of myths in film and magazines, and the boom in vintage, is particularly telling. Duprey calls it the “cerulean sweater,” a reference to the monologue in The Devil Wears Prada in which a magazine editor traces a luxury runway collection to a sale sweater. Abercrombie has focused much of its energy on sending product to influencers with smaller followings, a tactic deployed by fast-fashion brands like Shein and Fashion Nova. It may make the style more accessible, but it also increasingly distances shoppers from the raw material, whether it’s a well-made (but extremely expensive) shirt or a moment of vintage or cinematic imagination.

As fast fashion takes over more and more businesses, we are increasingly moving away from the sources of true style. But maybe we are too attached to style. These days, most of us just want to wear a stylish shirt without having to watch multiple movies and listen to a bunch of albums to figure it out.